The Comet

"Is that it? Is that it?" questioned the child excitedly. "No my dear, that's just a star" answered the father patiently. A few feet away, a man looked at the family and smiled to himself. The family was just one of the many who had gathered at the lake that night to witness the arrival of Halie's Comet, an occurrence once every few millennia. The man was alone, a solitary figure amongst the crowd., The velvety darkness of the sky was riddled with the sprinkling of stars. A good night for comet-gazing, the man thought. Leaning against a massive oak, he gazed silently at the sky and waited.

It was a few hours later when the child earlier, exclaimed excitedly once again, "Oh my god, daddy look! It's HUGE!" A wave of excitement and anticipation swept across the gathered crowd, as several other people started pointing and squealing. Everyone...except the man. He stood stolidly and stared. He could not take his eyes of the comet. It was massive, yet elegant. Beautiful, yet deadly. Its brilliance lit up the night sky, forcing the stars to cower behind it. The man paid no attention to the stars whatsoever. He had never seen anything so beautiful. He felt as if his whole life had led up to this moment, as if this was his destiny, his purpose. All of it had been for this. The arrival of this miracle. With elegant grace and powerful assurance, the comet danced its way across the sky. Then, it was gone. Just like that. As suddenly as it appeared, its disappearance was just as swift.

The man continued to stare into the heavens. The world seemed much darker without the brilliance of the comet, of the angel. His purpose, his destiny, had disappeared. What was the point of everything now? Everything seemed gloomier. The world seemed an inescapable abyss. Darkness surrounded him yet again, embracing him into its cold arms. It hurt, this aching feeling inside him. It hurt. He felt like a blind man, groping desperately for his crutch, his comet, his angel. The stars twinkled softly, quietly offering their help to illuminate this abyss in which he had fallen into, but he did not register them. His eyes were only searching for the brilliance which had lighted up his life but it was gone. Never coming back. He struggled hard to wrap his head around the fact that life had to go on, that life had more meaning than a comet, but to no avail. He knew, deep down to the very core of his soul, that that comet, that angel, was what he had lived the past few decades for. Now it was gone.

That thought kept reverberating in his mind, as if his subconscious was telling him to accept the fact and move on. How could he? He knew that nothing could compare to its sheer brilliance. He collapsed onto the ground, the moist grass caressing his face as he laid his head down onto the soft underbelly of this abyss, of this darkness. "Halie..." he thought, weeping silently into the earth. Halie...